SAN JOSE, Calif., May 27, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Next week at the
CiscoLive! digital event, Cisco will unveil the latest updates to
its Cisco Designed portfolio including support for five of small
businesses biggest technology challenges. As companies look towards
different forms of limited reopening they are adapting to the next
normal and technology will play a key role in supporting new ways
of doing business. According to a National Small Business
Association survey of over 980 small businesses, between March and
April the number of business owners and their employees working
remotely has doubled, a trend that is widely expected to continue.
Small businesses are increasingly becoming a target of hackers so
it's no surprise security has become the top small business IT
concern. In addition to securely enabling a remote workforce, Cisco
and its partners are committed to supporting small businesses in
the following areas.
- Work from home: how
to meet and collaborate with employees and customers securely
- Cybercrime protection: how to safeguard from
identity theft, hackers and internet attacks
- Always-on business: how to provide easy installation
and reliable IT services using cloud technology
- Workplace monitoring: how to enable safe social
distancing and real time monitoring
- Future or new office: how to improve productivity
and security at shared physical workspaces
"Small businesses are investing in mobility because it
contributes to cost savings, increases market reach, improves
productivity and establishes better ways of working," said
Anurag Agrawal, Analyst, Techaisle.
"Security remains the top constraint for accelerating remote work
adoption as small businesses struggle with data protection and
mobile management. The Cisco Designed portfolio of small
business-focused solutions directly addresses the needs and threat
vectors for secure workplaces, better collaboration, simplified
manageability and organizational productivity empowerment."
At CiscoLive! Cisco will announce new products and solutions to
support small business customers with the following:
- Webex Work- a complete cloud collaboration solution that
combines calling, meeting and messaging services in a single
subscription, with attractive flexible monthly pricing for small
businesses. Modern collaboration tools have become a must-have in
the new normal, enabling people to be productive from anywhere,
keeping employees connected, and ensuring work moves forward. With
per user/per month Webex licenses starting at $19.95/month, this is priced competitively for
small businesses.
- Enhanced email security – email remains the number one
threat vector for all businesses. Learn more about how Cisco is
enhancing email security next week at CiscoLive!
- Cisco Business Dashboard – a new version of the network
management tool with a streamlined user interface to manage the
entire network with integrated lifecycle management and automated
alerting. With zero-touch plug and play deployment, and hosted in
the cloud or on premises, it allows organizations to set-up,
monitor and operate network devices from a simple interface on any
device.
- New Cisco Business Switches- many businesses will be
re-evaluating their office footprint in the new normal. New
switches in the Cisco Designed portfolio provide flexible, easy to
set up, secure connectivity for businesses who are powering
connections across a remote and in office workforce. The two new
series of switches provide essential functionality along with
advanced security options all while priced to appeal to small
businesses.
- Tools to manage your network in the Cloud – Cisco Meraki
Network Assurance allows customers to monitor all aspects of the
network from their Meraki Dashboard as well as detect and fix
network issues in a matter of minutes. This is a new addition to
the Cisco Designed portfolio and will help small businesses easily
monitor and troubleshoot their network infrastructure in the
cloud.
Going digital for the first time, CiscoLive! Cisco's flagship
customer event is hosting more than 40 online sessions over two
days. Join us to learn more about our Cisco Designed portfolio and
how we are supporting small businesses on Wednesday, June 3 at 12:00
pm PT (3:00 pm ET). Register
for CiscoLive! here.
Recent additional steps from Cisco to support small businesses
include a range of financing options such as the Business
Resiliency program from Cisco Capital allowing organizations to
access technology to support business continuity and invest for
recovery, deferring 95 percent of the cost until
January 2021. Cisco launched free
Webex and security offers for businesses as they jump started their
secure remote working experience.
Cisco also joined the "Stand for Small"
initiative, partnering with American Express and a
growing group of companies. Cisco joins more than 60 other leading
companies across media, technology, consumer goods and professional
services, focused on providing meaningful support to small
businesses as they navigate the impacts of Covid-19. Stand for
Small brings together valuable benefits on a single, easy-to-use
digital platform. It allows small businesses to access relevant
products, information, tools and services. Learn more
about Stand for Small.
What customers are saying about Cisco Designed
"As a
drone delivery company, our mission is to make physical access to
physical goods as seamless as the internet has made access to
data," said Paolo Resmini, Vice
President of Engineering, Matternet. "With several stations and
drones around the world, it is critical for all of them to be able
to communicate reliably and securely. What we love about the Cisco
Meraki solutions is the ease of deployment and seamlessly being
able to secure our various IT stations. As a smaller company, Cisco
Meraki allows us to have all of the greatness of enterprise level
internet infrastructure with minimal IT staff and management."
"As a small business and nonprofit, we have noticed that we
can be even more vulnerable to security threats compared
to enterprise level organizations. We have seen a sharp and
significant increase to security threats in the last year," said
Elizabeth Whamond, Director of
IT, Second Harvest of Silicon Valley. "Being
able to work with Cisco and our partners to easily deploy all of
the necessary security solutions we need to mitigate this kind of
risk has been invaluable to the team and instead allows us to focus
on our mission of ensuring our community has the food they
need to thrive."
"In-person team collaboration has always been critical to giving
our clients the best possible product," said Bryan Shetsky, CEO Lamark Media. "However, at the onset of
the pandemic, we were able to move our entire company to remote in
two days thanks to the secure collaboration technology we had in
place and we have been even more productive as a remote workforce.
With the right technology, the right security and the right
components, we have learned that we can run a very successful
business even when all of our employees are remote. Cisco has been
a great partner for us because they have all of the technology
components you need from collaboration to security to
networking."
Additional Resources:
- Watch the Cisco Live Small Business Session
- Find out more on Cisco's Small Business Cisco.com page to learn
about the Cisco Designed portfolio
- Follow Cisco Small Business on Twitter, Facebook and
LinkedIn
- Find out about Financing Options for Small Business
About Cisco
Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide technology leader that has
been making the Internet work since 1984. Our people, products and
partners help society securely connect and seize tomorrow's digital
opportunity today. Discover more at thenetwork.cisco.com and follow
us on Twitter at @Cisco.
Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks
of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A
listing of Cisco's trademarks can be found at
www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are
the property of their respective owners. The use of the word
"partner" does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco
and any other company.
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